Don't flood hospitals with chikungunya cases

There is a misconception going around that persons are being told at the

St Ann's Bay Hospital to visit health centres for chik-V symptoms.

There are hundreds of patients seen at the hospital per day for many different complaints, not to mention the emergency cases. Persons without any chronic medical illness, in the acute stage of the illness, are being told to visit health centres.

The hospital has a responsibility to attend to emergency and critical patients as a priority; it would overwork the resources for the hospital and staff to attend to everyone who attends the facility with chik-V symptoms. In the humblest terms, persons are asked to utilise the primary health-care (PHC) facilities. The PHC facilities are equipped with the necessary resources, which include medical doctors and other staff and drugs to treat patients for the virus.

If the symptoms persist beyond a specific period, they are advised to revisit the PHC facility or the secondary facility for further treatment. It is never the intention of the hospital to deny anyone access to medical attention at any level.

The hospital is a secondary facility and

persons have not been adequately using it as such. Those with symptoms should follow the necessary guidelines, as we use our health services effectively to serve everyone in need.

We must also learn from this experience to clean up our surroundings to prevent recurrence and rid our environment of breeding sites for mosquitoes and other vectors, which most times is caused by how we irresponsibly dispose of our waste.

We should not blame the minister of health or the Government for our irresponsible action but, instead, develop ways to keep our home, community and country clean.

The millions of dollars the Government had to spend on clean-up efforts could have been better expended on infrastructural development.